There have been produced various alcohol drinks containing materials originating in fruits and vegetables (for example, juice and pericarp) as starting materials. In recent years, alcohol drinks having a degree of alcohol less than 9°, which are generally called “low alcohol drinks”, and drinks in cans, bottles and PET bottles, which are called RTD (Ready To Drink) products because they can be drunk out of the container without being poured into a glass, are becoming increasingly popular. For example canned shochu-based drinks (chuhai) containing a fruit juice and carbonic acid fall within this category.
In preparing and handling fruit-origin materials used as raw materials for producing low alcohol drinks, various devices have been made to utilize the characteristics of the fruits in the final products. To produce a distilled liquor or an alcohol drink containing a fruit dipped in alcohol which keeps the fresh aroma of the raw fruit, is free from the generation of a secondary smell by heating, and thus has a natural flavor; for example, studies have been made of a method comprising dipping a fresh fruit in an aqueous alcohol solution having an appropriate concentration, vacuum-distilling the alcohol extract thus obtained under appropriately reduced pressure and collecting the distillate (Patent document 1). Also, there has been proposed a product which is prepared by freezing a fruit juice as such without vacuum-concentration (heating) to thereby avoid damage to the freshness of the raw fruit.
To stably supply a material keeping the flavor and color of Japanese persimmon at all times of the year, on the other hand, studies have also been made on a technique whereby Japanese persimmons are frozen by using liquid nitrogen, ground with a low-temperature grinder and then freeze-dried in vacuo to give a powder, though it is not intended to use Japanese persimmon as a raw material in producing low alcohol drinks in this case (Patent document 2).
Patent document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-125653
Patent document 2: Japanese Patent Laid-Open SHO-61-166353